10 Things About ‘The Office’ You May Not Have Known

Over on TV Guide today, they sat down with the producers and cast of NBC’s The Office, which will end its nine-season run next Thursday, and talked about the origins of the show, and what could’ve been. Some of this stuff many of us may have known, but other stuff I am hearing for the first time. It’s fascinating to think where the show — which apparently tested horribly with audiences — could’ve ended up. Read the whole TV Guide piece here, but here’s a brief synopsis of the 10 Secrets about The Office revealed in it.

1. This one I knew, but Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman) was nearly cast as Michael Scott. In fact, he was cast because Steve Carell had another pilot commitment, but when Carell’s pilot fell through, Odenkirk was dropped (he showed up earlier this season as a Philly bizarro version of Michael).

2. The show was originally developed for FX or HBO, but FX passed on it because they were concerned that too many of their viewers might have had too much loyalty to the original UK version to buy into the American remake (certainly, a problem at NBC also faced, initially).

3. Jim and Pam were almost an interracial couple. Greg Daniels had the idea, in the beginning, that Daryl would’ve been the Roy character, and that his ex-wife on the show (Erica Vittina Phillips) would’ve played the Pam Beasley character, who would wind up with Jim Halpert.

5. There was a whole slew of Dunder Mifflin branches across the Northeast, including one in Yonkers and Nashua.

6. There were several spin-off ideas, including a parody of PBS’s An American Family, which would’ve starred Ed Helms and Catherine Tate, who would’ve played Helms’ wife. Also, a Jim and Pam spin-off was considered around season four as was, obviously, the Schrute Farm spin-off that wasn’t picked up by NBC this year.

7. Many of us remember that Parks and Recreation was originally going to be a spin-off of The Office, using Rashida Jones’ Karen as the spin-off character. However, that was scrapped, but to keep the “spin-off” idea alive, Paul Lieberstein (Toby) had considered making a copy machine — which would be transported to Pawnee, Indiana from Scranton’s Dunder Mifflin office — the “spin-off” character to keep that construct alive.

8. Oscar was not originally supposed to be gay; that came as a result of Michael Scott’s Gay Witch Hunt in season three, and the need to have a target for that “witch hunt.”

9. Dwight’s Amish looking white-trash extended family was inspired by Rainn Wilson’s actual family, as well as Greg Daniels’ grandaparents, who owned a beet farm.

10. This one is not so revelatory, but had Dwight’s spin-off, The Farm, been picked up, Rainn Wilson would’ve left The Office at midseason, which sadly would’ve deprived us of last week’s fantastic episode, where he was finally elevated to manager. However, Jim and Pam would’ve visited the spin-off at some point.

Andy’s current suckiness hurts more, because he used to be lovable. I mean, the Andy who sang in musicals, wore bright pants and sweater vests and drove to Florida to get Erin was one of my favorite characters. And now he’s a dick.

To be fair, Andy did start off as a dick. The guy threatened to kill Jim over Call of Duty. But then they sent him to anger management and he became goofy and lovable. And now he’s a dick again, but for no reason. I don’t get it.

I could be mistaken, but I believe Oscar has a throw away line in Season 1 indicating he has a girl friend. This could be retconned to be just him still in the closet, but the theory of him not being gay at first still stands.

Oh yeah, I’m not saying he supposed to be gay from the start and I do remember the girlfriend line. I was just clarifying he was shown to be gay in mid season 2, not the season 3 premiere. The plot there was mostly Michael outing him to the office, but the viewers knew well before.

I am a big fan of the British version so had high hopes for the American remake- I thought the pilot was a TERRIBLE copy of the Gervais one. At the time people were still figuring out that you could add celebrities through MySpace so I added B.J. Novak and messaged him, asking why the episode had to be so similar to the British one. Well, he actually wrote back and asked me to be patient, give them a chance to find their voice and he really believed it would turn into a good show.

So I have stuck with the show this far because a past cast member asked me to give it a shot.